Former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was charged with murder during a miserable week for NFL players and pro athletes in general. Photo: REUTERS

This stuff is so far beyond most of us that the only rule change we can suggest is three shrugs and you’re out.

Most of us, I figure, once we’ve discovered too late that we left our driver’s license home, instantly regret it, but then trust it won’t be needed provided we drive safely. And we’d be extra cautious if we were driving a stolen car.

Yet, among pro and full-scholarship, big-time college athletes, it seems as if driving without a license — or driving on one suspended somewhere between one and 10 times — is de rigueur, how they roll.

CUFF STUFF: Sports fans have become distressingly inured to the waves of arrested athletes, such as Aaron Hernandez, above at his bail hearing this week for a murder charge, writes Phil Mushnick. (AP)

CUFF STUFF: Sports fans have become distressingly inured to the waves of arrested athletes, such as Aaron Hernandez, above at his bail hearing this week for a murder charge, writes Phil Mushnick. (
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And that’s just the starting point: The expensive, flashy ride, often with please-stop-me tinted windows, is being driven between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., when nothing good, outside of maternity wards, is likely to happen.

It’s being driven much too fast — 85-110 mph is standard — the unlicensed driver is often inebriated or otherwise impaired, and there can be an assortment of drugs, open booze containers or handguns, assault rifles and ammo on board.

If an NBA or NFL player — having arrived in the league as a college man — had done this once, had he risked or wrecked his career, reputation and short-term multi-million-dollar pay to do such a thing — even just one guy on a one-time basis — the behavior would seem unfathomable.

But such combinations of the above — and worse, including murder charges — now come at us the way those unwrapped candies came at Lucy and Ethel along that conveyor belt — far too frequently than most of us can grasp.

It’s explained as “cultural?” All right, if that’s the case, why does that life-is-cheap, expect-no-better culture persist, worsen? Why is it excused, ignored, sold? Why in the name of common sense would those who question and lament the logic of sustaining such a culture be branded a racist or Uncle Tom?

And why do those in the highest places, those who could make the biggest differences — starting with our first black president — choose to pass on addressing such elephant-in-the-room matters, choosing instead to indulge the transparent, backwards-marching, self-serving and intentionally blind, highly and hideously selective game plans of an Al Sharpton?

For crying out loud, at a time when colleges and pro leagues are being laid low and lower by the invited, systemic presence of violent felons on their rosters and payrolls, their leaders are betraying long, sweet traditions to switch to black uniforms and snarling mascots, as a way to appear more “menacing” and “aggressive” — especially for recruits from streets where wearing the wrong color T-shirt can get you killed.

Why bother looking tough when you’ve already recruited thugs? Why, other than following the orders of the sports gear/gangwear companies to which the schools and leagues have sold their souls?

It’s now theorized the murder of Aaron Hernandez’s pal was designed to keep him from further loose-lipping about two prior murders that may point to Hernandez, University of Florida man.

Sensational stuff, so much so it has relegated other fresh Pros Gone Wild stories to also-ran status. A sampler:

Colts safety Joe Lefeged, a Rutgers man, was arrested — early morning, of course — after he and a friend allegedly bolted police. Cops say they found booze and a semi-automatic .40 caliber handgun in the car.

Gilbert Arenas, 31-year-old ex-NBA star and a University of Arizona man, was pulled over at 2:30 a.m. for speeding. Police say he was driving without a license. It was then he was arrested for hauling a truckload of fireworks. He already is a convicted felon, having carried an unlicensed pistol as per a beef with a Wizards teammate over a gambling debt.

The Browns released linebacker Ausar Walcott, University of Virginia, after he was arrested for attempted murder, following an alleged 3 a.m. fight outside a strip joint.

Josh Brent, University of Illinois and more recently a Cowboy, failed his second drug test — while out on bail after he was charged with the 2:30 a.m. intoxication manslaughter of teammate Jerry Brown in December.

Eagles All-Pro offensive lineman Jason Peters, 31 and a University of Arkansas man, was arrested for a second time, this time for allegedly taking cops on an 100-mph chase after they tried to stop him for drag racing — at 4:45 a.m.

It was not clear if Peters were carrying — or even has — a driver’s license.

Buck’s baseball common sense goes out for a ‘walk’

Yak, yak, yak. Stats, stats, stats. Top of the first, Yankees-Orioles on Saturday, Fox’s Joe Buck: “With this Yankee lineup, with the way it is, it’s remarkable that [Robinson] Cano has done anything. Hitting .281, 16 home runs, 47 RBIs, his walks are up … ”

Why, by Buck’s own reasoning, wouldn’t his walks be up?

But Buck missed the most “remarkable” part of Cano’s leadership: He seldom runs to first.

* Even NBC’s “plausibly live” cuts to good shots could not save the Women’s U.S. Open from being dreary, slow-paced, defensive, desultory, tough-to-watch golf. There was no “there” there.

* Could you publicly and professionally plug a top competitor of the company that employs you? Neither could I. Yet Joe Benigno, employed by CBS-owned WFAN and Mets-owned SNY, was heard Saturday in an ad identifying himself, then telling listeners to watch the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on ESPN2.

* There is no one who delivers a more complete sports radio update than WFAN’s Mike McCann. Never have to wonder who pitched the shutout.

* Ninth inning Saturday, a Channel 11/SNY graphic showed the Nationals’ Roger Bernadina had just swung and missed at a 93-mph pitch from 40-year-old Met LaTroy Hawkins. I guess.

* Three-game weekend Yanks-O’s series, all night games, including Saturday for Fox money, and last night’s, switched just three weeks ago from 1 to 8 p.m. for ESPN money. Legalized prostitution.

* ESPN-NY Radio’s Robin Lundberg is expected to get a big push, and soon. Lundberg has his radical radio side; he once answered a question with “I don’t know.”

* Michigan football has moved to single-game “dynamic pricing” (price-gouging): $65 to sit far away for Central Michigan and Akron, $175 for Ohio State, $195 for Notre Dame.

* Sans metal bats, ESPN’s College World Series actually sounded like baseball.

* Manhattan attorney Don Panush wonders how ESPN can first report the Nets-Celtics trade crediting Yahoo!Sports, then later credit the story to “ESPN and multiple sources.” How? Habit.

* Should Aaron Hernandez go away for a long time, ESPN plans to hire him as a “Senior NFL Insider.”